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Back when my girls were little I got a great piece of advice about having ‘The Talk’. Somebody told me that you need to have 200 one minute conversations about sex. That way it is natural and in bite size pieces. I thought this was great advice so I dove right in. Soon after, as my girls (ages 3, 6 and 8 ) were jumping on the bed instead of making it, I asked them ‘Do you know how babies are made?’ They stopped jumping, told me what gets inserted where, and continued the bounce fest. Good enough for me. One down, 199 to go. Of course the very next day I saw an old friend, whom I hadn’t seen in years, and congratulated her on her pregnancy. I’m so thankful that the girls waited for her to leave before they started peppering me with questions like ‘Did Joe (names changed to protect the innocent) put his Boll Weevil, I mean penis into Jane?’. Um, yeah. Does that count as conversation number 2?
We read some books and had some conversations and it was funny to see how very different my olders approached this subject. (Kate was too little at the time so she got her own stories with Mr. Fun. Mr. Fun didn’t think this sort of conversation was very fun when he walked in on it one day and has mostly tried to keep out of these sorts of matters.) Jill is very scientific and wants to know exactly what is going to happen to her body and why. She loved the books we got and she would read them to herself, at night, so she could learn as much as possible. She enjoyed talking about it and even had to be reminded that her friends might think this is an embarrassing subject and might not want to discuss it over the 4th grade lunch table at school. Jill enjoyed the puberty class we did together through the Girl Scouts.
Ellie, on the other hand, preferred to keep her hands over her ears and her eyes averted (although I did catch some peeking when we got to some of the more ‘interesting’ illustrations). With this in mind I knew that kid would not be asking me any questions to fill in her knowledge gaps. I knew that I was going to have to find another authority on the subject that she could listen to without picturing that person doing the unspeakable acts with Mr. Fun. So I signed us up (along with two of her friends and their moms) for a class through an organization called Great Conversations. This class was fantastic. The instructor, Linda, went through the ‘Hit Parade of Puberty’ (oily skin, “AMAZING” breasts, weight gain, getting your period, etc.) and all sorts of scenarios the girls might encounter. I particularly love that she pointed out that Dads and even male teachers want puberty to go well for these girls and that they shouldn’t be embarrassed to ask for help from these resources in their lives too. There was lots of laughing and even though it took days for the grossed out/embarrassed look on Ellie’s face to fade away I think even she would admit that she learned a lot. She won’t be going so far as to say she is looking forward to it (none of us are!), but I don’t think she will be afraid of it.
Next up is Kate. I need to have a few more one minute conversations with THAT kid. She is picking up tidbits here and there and I think the messages are getting garbled. She told me the other day that a period is just a dot of blood in your undies, in a tone that suggested ‘What’s the big deal?’ It took me a minute to realize that she knew there was some bleeding involved but it must be named after a period because it is a small little dot. Close kid. I guess that will be my next great conversation…